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Tag Archives: stereotype

As most of you regular Itchers will know, recently on IQ we have taken a special interest in the role of gender in the modern world, and how stereotypes and ideas about gender expression are changing in our modern world.

In part 1 we looked at the expectations we place on each other to conform to pre-determined rules about engagement between the sexes, and how we are expected to uphold our gender roles through our behaviour and our activity.

In part 2 the focus was more about what the gender roles are, and how they define what we are ‘allowed’ to be in terms of gender conformity.

Part 3 took a closer look at how appearance has defined gender, and how this is changing now.

In part 4 we looked at the pitfalls of a world obsessed with labels, and how this can be detrimental to gender expression and realisation.

In this final part we will be looking at how some people can change aspects of themselves so as to realign with another gender and realise an existence that reflects how they feel inside. This state is known as gender dysphoria, and though it is becoming more well documented, there is still a lot of confusion around what it represents. A broader term to describe those who identify as the other, neither or both genders would be gender nonconforming, and those who identify as the latter two may also refer to themselves as genderqueer. For more information on the different terms and also more information about gender dysphoria, there is a wonderful explanation here on WebMD.com.

“Never mind male or female; there’s a skeleton living inside you…!”

What are your options?

Ok, so if you do believe that you are born in a different body to the gender you feel, what can you do about it? For a full blown life change, the steps are myriad and often expensive. You will need to start to find peace in yourself, and then share your realisation with your loved ones. After this, it is important to find a therapist to give you the mental support you will inevitably need to work through how this will change your life and to also give you help with the commonly associated distress, anxiety, dissatisfaction and/or restlessness, and then start to look into hormone replacement therapy. This is also a good time to consider changing your name and living as the gender you feel. Eventually you will reach a point where surgery is necessary, and from there you can change your legal gender status, finally making it 100% official that your full transition from a to b is complete.

Sounds easy, right? Of course not. And this list doesn’t reflect the various pitfalls and monsters lying in wake to disrupt your progress, such as ignorance, abuse, bullying, financial implications, societal stigmas, hardcore traditionalists and non-accepting loved ones. For more information, Transsexual Road Map has a much more detailed version of the list above.

Imagine going through all that just to get to a stage where you feel you can truly be yourself! I tip my hate to everyone who is doing, has done, or will do this. It must take a lot of strength.

“Dig deep and find the strength within”

Imagination Station

If you are someone who feels you were born in the wrong body, what would you do? Imagine you’re a little girl. You’re given toys to play with like brushes and dolls, and dressed all the time in pink. But you want to play with the boys, and their soldiers and toy cars. You tell your parents and they laugh, saying ‘no sweetie, girls play with dolls’.

When you start school, the other girls all want to sing songs and comb each others hair, but you want to play football and climb trees. You walk over to the circle where the boys are playing and they all stare. ‘Can I play?’ you ask. ‘No girls allowed’ they shout. Ok…

Now it’s high school and puberty has hit you. Your body is changing in lots of strange ways, but you’ve learned enough about the world to know that you are a boy, not a girl. You know that the only thing that stops you from being a boy is biology. You dress in ‘boys’ clothes, and think and act like one. Literally the only thing that makes you female is your anatomical design. What kind of problems do you anticipate facing? Obviously, there will be the non-acceptance from some strangers, and from the uneducated, naive or ignorant. You will probably by this point have built up quite a thick skin to the sniggers and comments due to the fact you are happier being true to your gender identity than being friends with everyone you ever meet. You wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who didn’t get it anyway. You couldn’t be…

It’s a story about a transgender boy named Gavin Grimm, 16, a resident of Gloucester County, Virginia, in the United States.

The problem he had is essentially this: “Put simply, Grimm was banned from the boys room — where he had been using the restroom without incident for seven weeks with his high school’s permission before fervent religious groups and fearful parents found out.” (BuzzFeed).

According to the article:

‘Last fall, the Gloucester County School Board held two rounds of meetings — packed with students and parents — over a proposal aimed at solely Grimm. While he sat in the room, public testimony called Grimm a “freak” and compared him to a dog, while some speakers debated his anatomy as a transgender boy. … the board passed a policy to prohibit transgender students from using restrooms that don’t correspond to their “biological genders.” ‘ (BuzzFeed)

The result was:

‘“The people of my community had a discussion about where I could use the bathroom — and my genitals and anatomy — that was mortifying and dehumanizing in a way I can’t begin to describe,” ‘ (BuzzFeed)

Now this case is still open, citing certain legislation that has already been used by the Obama administration to make it legally permissible for transgender students to use the facilities that align with their gender identity and not their anatomy.

The argument from Gavin’s attorney, as well as citing the above legislation, is that he has Gender Dysphoria (the incongruence between a person’s sexual anatomy and gender identity) and that a common treatment for that is to live as your gender identity defines before further surgical treatment. The school had been fine about it before. What changed?

Potentially, if this case goes in Gavin’s favour, it would be another huge step for transgender individuals in society. I thoroughly suggest reading the article in full for more information.

Exactly…

The Power of Choice

Do we honestly believe that we should be able to tell someone who they are? A huge part of what makes us individuals is our ability to rationalise our own existence, and analyse the elements of our character that define our identity. If someone thinks they were born in the wrong body, who are we to say otherwise?

“I claim the right to choose my ultimate gender beyond my traits, looks, qualities, and features, even if it is different from the sexual organs I possess. And whether that’s feminine or hermaphrodite or my desired blend of masculine and feminine is my choice.”

That’s the whole point; choice. She has chosen to empower herself. Even her name was originally used by a boy in class to tease her, but she took it as her name to take back control of it and disarm the bullies.

For some, being true to yourself can be a lonely experience

Further Choices

We have already spoken in previous instalments about the recent transition of Caitlyn Jenner. However, she is not the only high profile person to make such a change to their life.

A personal hero of mine, Martine Rothblatt, describes herself as a ‘transhumanist’. She lived her life as a man until 1994, aged 40, when she came out as transgender. She is a huge advocate of transgender rights, and one of the wealthiest CEOs in America.

In an interview for TED.com she claims that she ‘always felt her soul was female’ but she didn’t want to show it for fear that she ‘would be laughed at’. As a result, she spent 40 years of her life feeling unable to truly tap into a fundamental element of who she was. In her book The Apartheid of Sex, Rothblatt claims that ‘there are seven billion people in the world, so there are seven unique ways to express your gender’. She is also a stout believer that gender is not defined by your genitals. The book covers how we are forced into categories of male or female, restricting us from the choice of gender expression that should be a given. She says ‘separate male or female genders is a constructed fiction, the reality is a gender fluidity that crosses the entire continuum from male to female’.

Inevitably, some will find the whole process of gender transition difficult to accept. In rare cases, this can lead to poisonous vitriol on a level far surpassing the language of decency and humanity. The transgender movement has been labelled as sick, wrong, against god and a disease or mental illness by some. What I find interesting is if it is a disease, then people need treatment, not bullying. If it’s a mental condition, people need treatment, not bullying. If it is against God, I’m sure God is more worried about the “2% of priests being paedophiles’ claimed in this BBC article.

If something is ‘wrong’ in the sense that it is a negative action with negative impact, it is normally because it is based on the fact that it harms others. But does being transgender actually affect anyone but the person involved? I’ve said it before, but if we all just forgot about Caitlyn Jenner and let her get on with her life, would it affect us?

Unfortunately, there are some who don’t see it this way. Ian Tuttle wrote an article for The National Review with the rather antagonistic sub-title Do those who voluntarily undergo unnecessary amputations deserve praise and support, like Caitlyn Jenner?

The article goes on to compare Jenner’s desire to transform her anatomy from male to female as being comparable to sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) wanting to amputate limbs or become deaf, blind, or dumb. His argument is that if it becomes socially acceptable to align the physical body with the mental identity in such a way, how can you say one is OK and the other is not.

To debate that Jenner was undergoing an amputation is to imply that her standard of living would decrease from such an act in a way similar to losing an arm or a vital sense is ludicrous (unless, of course, you are talking about the affects that being a woman versus being a man may have on salary or job opportunities – but we’ll save that for another post). Gender identity is something that defines us on so many ingrained levels that to deny someone the chance to be what they have always felt is surely a constriction of liberty? If a skinny kid wants to be a body builder, do you go and tell him he can’t be? If a man is born with a crooked nose, is he not allowed the plastic surgery to change it? I mean, does Mr Tuttle believe women shouldn’t be allowed to have their armpits lasered as it messes with their anatomy?

The line, again, comes back to what we said before. If someone wants to do something and it doesn’t affect anyone else, nor put them themselves in serious danger, then what is the big deal? With any such existential question, there will always be the opposite side, capable of creating abstract examples to try and circumvent this idea of liberty and lead us back towards a debate about ‘nature’ and ‘normality’. For every one that they can create, we can create more. The best answer? Ask yourself, as a human, ‘do I want other humans to be miserable?’ If you don’t, then how can you help people feel comfortable enough in themselves to enjoy life? If a celebrity you’ll never meet wants to adjust their anatomy, is it affecting you? Even if that inspires your own child to do the same, is that the end of the world? Wouldn’t you be happier that your child found a way of expressing who they truly were, instead of following a societal doctrine on gender, and forcing themselves to conform to a fiction perpetuated by each generation?

“I just wanna be meeeeeeee”

Reactions of a More Positive Nature

Scruffy yet loveable funny man Russell Brand talked recently about the world’s reaction to Caitlyn Jenner’s transformation on his YouTube Channel. His daily news segment titled ‘The Trews’ claimed, in episode 334, that the overwhelming response to Jenner’s transformation is a reflection of society’s desire for a new goddess. Religion, he argues, is full of androgynous deities. The very nature of gender is fluid, for humanity is united as one by a shared consciousness, and gender is just an expression within that. We all encompass different elements of both male and female traits, and yet by living in a largely patriarchal society we are forced to champion traits deemed masculine such as individualism and ambition, and we often forget qualities that are perceived as feminine, such as compassion and community. Whether you agree or disagree, he makes some interesting points. Is our male dominated society one of the reasons why transgenderism is so vehemently rejected by some? Ideologically, could we benefit as a society en masse from embracing a little more femininity anyway?

“Powerhouse brands such as Bic and Honda are finding that this group isn’t very receptive to tried-and-true male and female societal roles, and even color palettes, long the way to differentiate baby girls from boys in their early years and shape their future aesthetic preferences. And Gen Z, the 5-17-year-olds coming up right behind them, are simpatico; they find gender-specific products a turnoff. ”

We see the two largest generations in the history of planet earth are already moving towards this gender fluidity, escaping the shackles of conformity and gender targeted marketing. If we are already refusing to recognise gendered products, it is another level of the gender construct that is being peeled away. The article goes on to claim that it’s not even a conscious decision, but just a product of the environment.

“A Northwestern University professor attributed the desire to be able to choose gender identity at will to the Internet, specifically playing computer games against competitors worldwide whose gender one doesn’t necessarily know, according to USA Today. And living so much of their lives virtually—gaming, communicating and even shopping—helps explain why nearly two-thirds of Millennials and Gen Zs believe gender lines are blurred, according to a study by the Intelligence Group reported in USA Today.”

Not sure if you believe this? Check out this article about thirteen unnecessarily gendered products, and see for yourself if you feel gender roles forced upon you are not a little bit disconcerting. For example, male sunscreen? Female pens? Any Brits reading this will be familiar with Yorkie Bars – they’re not for girls!

“Whadoyamean not for girls?”

The key point though is that as we move forward, the wheel is already turning. Like it or not, we are heading towards a much more gender fluid and androgynous future. The same article on doingwhatsgood puts it like this:

“Millennials and Gen Z parents are allowing their children to explore their gender identities and not limiting them to traditional stereotypes.”

It’s happening, one day at a time. Each generation more adept at seeing through gender stereotypes than the last. What will it mean for us as humanity? Who knows. The slow march towards AI and the potential end of biological humanity, moving instead into robotic, engineered life feels like one possible outcome that would also render gender virtually obsolete. Is that our destiny? I think gender is one way to aid personality and identity, and your personal expression of whatever you see in you is part of the make-up of who we are. Denying it is pointless, and so any cultural environment that allows for this expression should be celebrated.

What are your thoughts?

Special thanks to chokphoto, Chris Sharp, David Castillo Dominici, imagerymajestic, nongpimmy, pat138241, stockimages and vectorolie @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net for use of their photos in this blog.

By now you must be asking yourself ‘why we are doing this?’ After all, it seems odd that someone who comes from a culture that clearly identifies the differences between the two classical interpretations of gender would want to highlight them so blatantly. Surely, the author would be biased into either a) perpetuating the stereotype or b) rebelling against it fully. Your author here would like to state that, regardless of what may be written, there is scope for everyone to eclipse their own tags, titles and labels and subvert the foundations of societal categorisation that in itself helps to create insurmountable boundaries and divisions within our communities.

They might sometimes be pretty, but they’re still in the way

The Problem With Labels

Labels are so common that their function has become redundant. I am not saying that labels don’t serve a purpose, or rather, that they weren’t intended to serve a purpose, but I think that by overusing them, we may have undermined their initial usefulness.

People in the beginnings of humanity were reliant on being able to communicate with others about danger, and so certain threats would get their own name. The problem is, over time you need to give a label to everything (if you’re using this idea). OK, so I’m speculating here. But still, bear with me. If you’re going to label some things, then you need to label others.

So, labels began and then we as societies couldn’t stop ourselves! These labels and names became fundamental to our world view, morphing and changing with our expanding and waning influences on regions and populace, until we as humanity reached a point where cultural expression explodes with the advent of the internet. See, this is where the problem for labels arrives. Now there are different people seeing things differently, their labels contradicting one another, and we are left with a problem of how these labels are going to move forward with us.

A World Without Labels

Imagine a world where you substitute the name of something for ‘thing’.

“James, can you pass me the thing?”

“Which thing?”

“The thing by the thing. There, by the thing. No, THE OTHER THING!”

It would be horrific. I’m not here to ask you to start a word revolution that leads to many deaths at the hands of the frustration of tedium. No. In fact, I’m not even here to try to change the labels themselves, either. What I think is much more important is to assess the damage of preconceptions about content and value based on a label. We as humans are prone to prejudice. We are hard wired to save our brains time by filling in the blanks in the world around us by using experience and prior knowledge. It’s a survival tool. The article Research states that prejudice comes from a basic human need and way of thinkingon psychologicalscience.org says, referencing a paper by Arne Roets and Alain Van Hiel of Ghent University:

‘[Roets] argues that this way of thinking is linked to people’s need to categorize the world, often unconsciously. “When we meet someone, we immediately see that person as being male or female, young or old, black or white, without really being aware of this categorization,” he says. “Social categories are useful to reduce complexity, but the problem is that we also assign some properties to these categories. This can lead to prejudice and stereotyping.” ‘

Boom. We categorise to save ourselves time, but the damage from this short-cutting can be socially impactive and lead to prejudice.

and this judge dreads prejudice!

Traditions

Take marriage for example. For hundreds, nay thousands of years, there has been a celebration of the link between two lovers of the opposite sex; an institution so fundamental to how we see love that it cannot be shaken. What little girl or boy hasn’t grown up thinking, at least briefly, about the person of their dreams, and how they would treasure the chance to make a promise to that person and unite with them in a bubble of eternal devotion?

That is how it stood for many years. Nobody questioned it’s meaning because there was little cause, and yet here we are in 2015 (guys, it’s the future), and this expression of love seems to be developing exclusivity. Some would have you believe that marriage is only available to partners of opposite sex. Mindy can marry John, but Mindy can’t marry Melissa (or John marry Joseph, for that matter). Seem fair? A quick Google will bring you the definition of marriage for yourself:

Thus far, we have a definition that clearly states the allowance in some cultures of marriage between same sex adults. Already, the label has shifted. In a world that should be pushing an agenda of love and togetherness, not hate and segregation, wouldn’t the ultimate celebration of love be something you’d want to advertise, and wouldn’t you try to get as many people as possible to do it?

Love is love, regardless of gender

The Opponents of Change

Unfortunately, there will always be opposition. A married couple in Australia has vowed to divorce if same-sex marriage is allowed. See it for yourself here. This is their choice, and ultimately I think the ability to express who you are, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, should be encouraged. Nay, it should be a given! They claim that “Marriage is sacred and what is truly marriage will only ever be what it has always been” (a direct quote from the article). I think that defending your culture and your local identity is important. It’s that kind of stuff that ties us together in communities. But to exclude some for their choices, or not allow them to indulge in something you hold as sacred, is a shame. They have their opinion, and are they hurting anyone? This couple are defending their traditions, but at what cost? Their right to choose to divorce over their opinions is as important to liberty as same-sex marriage is to lovers of the same sex.

I hate this idea of sacred tradition; as if somehow tradition cannot adapt with the future and absorb changes in society. I think some traditions are important in expressing ones culture and therefore ones identity, but there are plenty that also restrict that right. To say that genders are ‘traditional’, and therefore shouldn’t be tampered with, is nonsense. It used to be traditional in America for a wealthy family to own a slave. Are you saying that such a tradition shouldn’t have been tampered with? Comparatively, both restrict freedoms and the ability to express one’s identity. I am of course not claiming that gender repression though constriction of identity should be compared to the disgusting practice of slavery, but please forgive my transgression as an attempt to give clarity to those claiming gender revolution or rediscovery is a bad thing. It’s not, it’s a good thing. Challenge normality, embrace diversity!

“In my day we had no choice. You do!”

Expression

So, if labels are redundant, and the world is now building towards a new and fresh definition of what such fundamental concepts as gender actually are, how can we examine where to begin with this new process of the deconstruction of gender identity?

Our sex, as mentioned in part 1 of this series, is something that we are born with. Gender is how we express ourselves, and how we choose to align within the paradigms of gender identity. It is who we are, not what we are. If someone wants to change their appearance, or align with the opposite (or any alternative) gender, why should it be a problem for us? By confusing the two, we are forcing some to abide by a false sense of self, and crushing their individuality. The article Seperating Sex and Gender on ourbodiesourselves.org puts it like this: “In this binary way of thinking, our genitals, not our internal sense of self, are the deciding factor.”

Where do we get our preconceptions from? It is widely accepted in Western culture that boys like blue and girls like pink. Research has been done that actually contradicts this, however. It would appear that much of our understanding of such fundamental differences in gender as this are based on biased upbringings and environmental opposites. And as Anna Fausto-Sterling writes on footnote1.com:

“instead of viewing gender as something inherent and fixed, we should understand it as a developmental process involving the ongoing interaction of genes, hormones, social cues, cultural norms, and other factors” (from Where does gender come from?)

In the fifth and final instalment we will look at how some people are looking to change their sex, as well as their gender identity, through various methods, and what this means for the future of gender.

Special thanks to cescassawin, imagermajestic, stockimages, Stuart Miles and suphakit73 @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net for use of their photos in this blog.

I recently read an article in Time magazine titled Meet the New Generation of Gender-Creative Kids. It explores what life is like for a child in a summer camp designed only for children who are growing up in a household that encourages them to find their gender for themselves. I can’t help but think, how can you ‘find’ gender?

I must admit, my view of gender is itself a little skewed. I was raised in a house of women, one woman (my mother) filled the role of a classic matriarchal figure, teaching me love, compassion, care and sensitivity. The other was my older sister, a much more aggressive, dominant, overbearing and yet emotional, delicate and insecure person. Through their eyes, I saw the world around me, and they helped me define a niche of my own.

The classic ‘father’ roles of provider and protector both fell to my mother, and it was with her that I learned hiking, football and writing and countless other hobbies and skills. She encouraged my studies and yet gave me the freedom to be myself and grow on my own too. My sister taught me to shave, badly. But the point is, I was learning how to be a man from two women who had had their fair share of shitty men. They had an opportunity to craft a new man from their own experiences, without the worry of society’s moulds there to constrict me or damage me. I still played army, I still wanted to be a spy and travel, and I still wanted to be a hero. Are they masculine traits? I learned how to be sensitive to other’s emotions, how to talk to anyone for any period of time about anything (especially on the phone), and I was able to show compassion. Are these feminine traits? If I’m honest, I didn’t really notice the difference as a kid, as I was too busy just running around in the mud and trying to be a mad scientist or an astronaut. As an adult, years after I’ve left the company of my mother and sister, I’m in the world and I’ve had to learn certain traits so as to ‘fit in’. I’ve adapted, often unconsciously, only aware of it afterwards when I look back on things and think ‘man, I’ve changed’.

For survival and protection, I assume

So, what is a man? After watching the recent Avengers film, The Age of Ultron, it’s tempting to want to say that a real man should be big and strong, and capable of protecting the world from invasion should such a reality take place. Perhaps a man is more than this though. To be honest, maybe the labels themselves are the issue. Let’s zoom out and look down on masculinity from above. Is it a construct or an innate character? Is it an assumed identity taught from birth, or is it the by-product of natural thirsts and impulses that drive most men toward a similar set of priorities?

Ok, so before we get bogged down thinking about the etymology of the words, allow me to define what we are talking about here. Sex is biological, and we are defined ‘biologically’ as boys or girls by the type of body we own. I am not here to discuss this, most often it is straight forward. As an adult, can you cross your legs comfortably? Yes, OK, you’re probably not a bloke.

Gender is how societies expectations of behaviour and action from boys and girls defines what we are able to do. For example, is it a social norm for young men to play with Barbie and not Action Man? No, on the most part this is still seen as a feminine behaviour, and so to play with a Barbie as a girl is adhering to your gender role, but to play with one as a boy is to flout your gender role.

Gender identity is how we feel inside about our role, and how that manifests in our appearance and actions. This is our reaction to gender roles, and often in teenage years you find a chance to experiment with your gender and your place within society. David Bowie was famous for utilising his naturally androgynous look to break down classic gender conformity expectations, especially in his Ziggie Stardust phase. Sometimes, when people feel their gender identity doesn’t fit with their biological sex, they identify as transgender.

Just because you’re tall, doesn’t mean you’re a basketball player

Gender Tags

So what is feminine, and what is masculine? These are the labels given to certain sets of behaviour that are identified with either being a woman or being a man. It’s important to note here that ItchQuill is not trying to tell you what is masculine and what is feminine, but instead explore what we as societies around the world are told is masculine and feminine.

To help with identifying what is seen as male and female, a quick Google search brings up a list of adjectives on PlannedParenthood.com’s article Gender & Gender Identity. They say that words often ascribed to femininity would be ‘passive, weak, emotional, dependent and nurturing’ to name but a few. For masculinity, some of the words were ‘aggressive, rebellious, hard, competitive and self-confident’. The list goes on, and it is not meant to act as a list of things to look for to describe the next woman or man you see, but more as a reflection of attributes that are often associated, rightly or wrongly, with either gender. Few could argue that these words are used in such a way, however.

“Man stuff”

Let’s look again at that masculinity list. Is it seen as ideal that men behave in these ways, or is it just expected? Let’s not forget, as masculinity and femininity is not defined by our biology but by our mentality, it has the potential to adapt and transform within different nations and cultures. These often get lost in stereotypes and can be part of a confusing and contradictory fabric of identity much larger than gender itself (such as the emotional Irish male stereotype, the dominant Latina female stereotype or the well-groomed and orderly British gent stereotype).

The question is; do we have an innate sense of masculinity, or is it learned? It is inescapable, the gender roles pumped at us from the news, our education, the media, advertising and such. We are constantly bombarded with messages on what we need to be, and how we need to behave to be seen as conforming to our gender roles and therefore ‘fitting in’. This stays with us for our whole lives, often influencing us in ways we are unaware of at the time.

“Lady things”

As Faulkner states in his book Doing Gender in Engineering Workplace Cultures, “Cultural notions of “feminine” and “masculine” behavior are shaped in part by observations about what women and men do. This kind of “gender marking” tends to discourage women or men from entering “gender-inauthentic” occupations” (Faulkner, 2009).

In the next instalment, we will be looking further at the roles of gender in society, and how this is changing with our younger generations.